QOTD: What's the Best Computer for a Student?

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xyster

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btw, solidworks runs just fine on my old pentium 4 3.2ghz system. i dont think most engineers need a powerful system, but maybe i'm less picky. i never brought my notebook to lecture, it seemed rude somehow, but some people do; i guess a smaller notebook is good in those cases. big or small, fast or cheap; it depends ultimately on the person and need. sorry if you dont agree. :p
 
If solidworks runs fine on your P4 3.2, you clearly have never tried any truly complex assemblies, nor have you tried significant simulation, animation, or rendering tasks. It'll do the basics on a fairly low end system, but any time you try to do more complex tasks, it can bring even a fairly high end system to a screeching halt.
 
Oh, and I'm closing in on 30 hours of CPU time (% usage * time * threads) on my render on a 3.73GHz i7, and it's almost done. For reference, this is a render of an aircraft engine in motion, done at 1080p60 for 20 seconds. If you think solidworks isn't CPU intensive, think again.
 

backbydemand

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If you are using simple office tasks like word processing, spreadsheets and some basic web browsing to do school/college/university work, then why are the system requirements any higher now than they were 5 years ago?

A Centrino 2Ghz, tops, run Windows XP and spend more money on beer.
 

abbadon_23

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Anything cheap, i.e. $500 or under, will have plenty of power for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Internet. This is for EDUCATION, right ?
 

abbadon_23

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P.S. When I went to college in 1996 I took a Cyrix 166+ Win95, no cd burner, just an MPEG TV card to watch TV. Upgrade from 16mb to 32 mb ram. 1.2GB hard drive was the shit. I was stoked an out 10Mb/s Lan connection to the backbone.
 

foldsomething

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Ok, first of all I'm thinking of the average student that knows how to poke around on a computer, but isn't the type to take up programing or building their own computer.

I saw the reports that students are picking netbooks over Macs... I really like my 13" macbook, but I know it can be a little pricey - but I have no idea why the average student would want a netbook other than it's cheap and small. Once they start using it, they'll see that it's slow, can't multi-task particularly well, and is missing an optical drive. Sure, optical drives are on the way out, but we're not quite there yet... if you buy a netbook that can even handle windows 7, you'll need to buy an external optical drive to install it... unless the netbook will be your 2nd pc, you might as well pay for quality- get a real laptop whether it's mac or windows.
 

justjc

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The term Student covers a wide range of people with very different demands of their hardware, making this task a little harder. For some students, working with graphics and movies daily a powerful 17" Notebook might be preferred, where the size and weight for most others would make it almost unusable.

My experiences from the last five years, where I have been a Student, makes me think that the best way to cover a Students needs is to get a cheap Netbook and build a HTPC.

The job of the Netbook should be what it's originally built for, namely Information gathering and note taking. Hopefully the lack of power will restrict it to that task, as I've seen quite a few good students falling behind because their Notebooks stole all their attention during class.

The HTPC should take care of all the other imaginable uses there can be for a computer. Being homebuilt it should, at least if it isn't built on dead platform, be able to upgrade for at least two years and last for at least 3. I would probably go AMD with a cheaper Phenom II x2 or x3, AM3 naturally, on a AMD 790GX+SB750 chipset, graphics would depend on need but for starters the integrated can perform more tasks than one imagines.
 

radnor

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Hoenstly ? The smart choice is something cheap, crappy with good batery life. And then use Remote desktop software to the desktop. If your University as a good connection, you can even play games and you don't have to worry of your lappy borking up or getting slow :)
 

dawn323

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if you have the money for a main stream laptop i'd say many (though of course not all) would be better served with splitting the money on two computers instead of buying a single machine. for instance, if you buy a macbook here in canada you'll spend $1400 or $1500 after taxes. in this instance a lot students would be a lot better off with a $1000 desktop workstation and spending the remaining $400-$500 sum on a good netbook.

this way they don't have to settle for a notebook that's a jack of all trades and doesn't excel at anything, or a notebook too powerful for portability, or a notebook too portable for power. instead they get the best of both worlds: a system with maximum portability and battery life and a desktop with lots of screen real estate and processing power.

in addition, having two computers protects oneself against computer catastrophes which i've seen happen and can be devastating in the middle of a school year.
 

viometrix

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[citation][nom]abswindows7[/nom]I'd get an i7 975 with 24 gig of ddr3 2000mhz, a 1200 watts power supply with 2 x gtx 295 in SLI with two 128 g SSD in raid 0. Also four 24 inch full hd lcd's I would of course cool that beast with liquid hydrogen That's a school dedicated computer ( If you plan not going to your classes )[/citation]


this was a question about portable student computers... not a loser living in college off of mommy and daddy's money.... i hate people that take a serious question and turn it into a joke.... but then again it may be relevant considering thats the type of kids we have in this country now.... taking everything for granted and living off of mom and dad
 

viometrix

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[citation][nom]justjc[/nom]The term Student covers a wide range of people with very different demands of their hardware, making this task a little harder. For some students, working with graphics and movies daily a powerful 17" Notebook might be preferred, where the size and weight for most others would make it almost unusable.My experiences from the last five years, where I have been a Student, makes me think that the best way to cover a Students needs is to get a cheap Netbook and build a HTPC.The job of the Netbook should be what it's originally built for, namely Information gathering and note taking. Hopefully the lack of power will restrict it to that task, as I've seen quite a few good students falling behind because their Notebooks stole all their attention during class.The HTPC should take care of all the other imaginable uses there can be for a computer. Being homebuilt it should, at least if it isn't built on dead platform, be able to upgrade for at least two years and last for at least 3. I would probably go AMD with a cheaper Phenom II x2 or x3, AM3 naturally, on a AMD 790GX+SB750 chipset, graphics would depend on need but for starters the integrated can perform more tasks than one imagines.[/citation]


this is more how i would have answered....being the strm student doesnt cover the area of study and the needs of the computer/ laptop/ netbook
 

zelannii

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OK, first, the "survey" all your press morons are quoting had A SAMPLE SIZE OF ONLY 300 PEOPLE IN A SINGLE GEOGRAPHIC AREA!!!

Yes, kids may be "looking" to spend a bit less, but why not actually go to a few university web sites and see what the comments from the IT staff are, and what the University MINIMUM requirements are for on-campus notebooks, and what the reccomended systems are.

Clemson is not exactly a "tech school" so I think they're a good representation of what a student going to a major university can expect:
http://www.clemson.edu/ccit/hardware_software/hardware/purchasing/index.html

Note 1st that the Dells recomended come with a pre-configured image for the campus network, and any other machines purchased have to be configured by tech support to access the campus systems... PRO versions of Vista or Mac OS X are required as all systems must be connected to a domain for security, and the home versions don't support that. That immediately eliminates the possibility of using a netbook. They even state in clear text: "'Netbooks' are not a viable option as your primary laptop."

Next, the selection. The White Macbook is actually the CHEAPEST system Clemson reccomends, being $949 and coming with a free iPod touch and free printer. Both Dell systems have a base price over $1049 and come with just a base software pack.

The BEST machine for a new student: a Macbook Pro 15" with windows Vista Business virtualized (which btw, CCIT staff will set up for you and is a fully supported configuration). Oh yea, you can use your FINANCIAL AID to buy one, so it;s not like you;re paying for a $2000 rig out of pocket...

Check the other major universities, and even some of the smaller ones. They all reccomend a basic performance machine, pro OS, efficient battery, and the specs of that machine are notedly higher than what people might expect. Why? Likely next year they'll all be required to use Windows 7, and the university is NOT going to reccomend machines that won't run it, and office 2010 too, plus all their security software (either required or PREINSTALLED), and they expect that machine to maintain the university software requirements for 4 years, with little more than RAM upgrades...
 

zelannii

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@abbadon_23:

1: requires Vista business or Mac OS X, as it must be capable of joining a domain and being managed by University IT staff. At most universities, you're lucky to have local admin rights on your own machine...
2: they're going to FORCE you to run an array of security packages.
3: it;s not running office, it;s running office while connected to the classroom systems and likely 3-4 other concurrent apps to keep up with what the professor is doing.
4: Likely, in most majors, you'll also be given access to virtual machines to run some apps you should not need to purchase yourself, and your machine needs to be able to handle that.
5: You need a machine that can do this not just now, but in 4 years, with only simple upgrades like RAM to get there
6: a descrete graphics card is required for Windows 7, which will be a requirement next year if not the following. The university is trying to avoid you buying a $600 machine now and another $800 machine in 2 years because you didn't listen.

Most importantly, BUY WHAT YOUR UNIVERSITY TELLS YOU! The local IT office usually has pre-configured images for you reccomended models (Dell SHIPS them preconfigured for most schools saving you a trip to the IT staff and a large fee). This also saves you buying all the security software the university requirs at retail prices. They also are trained to repair these machines, are an authorized warranty provider, and stock parts to fix them... If you're not using a supproted model laptop and need a repair, you'll likely be stuck waiting 2-3 weeks without it if you have to ship it to a central depot and didn't pay the extra few hundred for expridited repairs...

Students don't just "type" anymore, they're interconnected to multiple real-time campus systems, need to handle audio and vido lessons, store massive amounts of data, run multiple apps and support virtual machines, and on top of all the base OS and security software pull that off without lagging and waiting for things to load, and do it on a 5+ hour battery while wifi connected...
 

bk420

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The best computer is no computer. Go use the computer lab and learn how tough life really is. Spoiled children these days. Save your money for the many hot dates your going to get.

Oh, you might want a 128GB thumbdrive, at least for all those documents.
 

webbwbb

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That largely depends on your major. If you are doing something with a lot of computer based art you will need a much more powerful computer. I believe that ASUS is the best brand for the student because they are the best quality and have products for every price point ($200 netbooks to $3,000 gaming monsters capable of doing practically any task that a student can throw at it).
 

engrpiman

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First I think we need to figure out what the student is going to be using the computer for. I have known English majors that were fine using old computers. Being a physics major I needed a little more power to run all the software such as maple.

Your hobbies also play a huge role to. If you like to do RAW picture editing or gaming then your will want a faster computer. I found that that a gaming desktop worked really well for me. I also ended up getting a $700 sony notebook which was powerful enough to do everything but game.
 

dvanholland

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zelannii, I feel sorry for you. Colleges that force you to buy a laptop because they think you will need them are pretty ridiculous. There is a college in my area that actually purchases laptops for the students (another bad idea). Hasn't anyone ever heard of paper. I just graduated and didn't even own a PC for my first year. Even after that I still went to the lab to write most of my paper or work on projects.
 

RooD

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Just sold my Desktop and 2 EEEPcs for a 17" alienware and it is for school too... if you cant carry 10-15 pounds you should get a gym membership =( with the money you save buying a netbook
 

puddleglum

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Given the current hardware, I can't see a reason to get an Apple any more. If you are an artsy-fartsy student, I guess the OS is enough to drive you to the Mac line. For the business students any old gates-crate will do. For the technical students, there really isn't any decent hardware left for you guys/gals. Your best option is using Unix/Linux and running emulators.
 

backbydemand

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If the school network "requires" a pro os, I assume that is for connecting to the domain. If however it is just for accessing the web is that really a minimum requirement?

As far as I am concerened, forcing all student to become highly IT literate or dependant is a bad idea. If your studies are, for example, classical history then all you need is access to library information, or an actual paper library and a word processor. If you are taking a degree in English you should automatically switch off the spellchecker.
 
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